A friend of mine once shared her “list” with me. It was a list of things she would never do to her future daughter-in-law and as you can imagine, it was heavily based upon her own personal experience as a daughter-in-law. Since I heard of her list I’ve been keeping mine mentally. But after four kids it’s starting to slip so I decided to write it out.
1.) When meeting my future daughter-in-law for the first time, I will not refuse to look at or acknowledge her while proceeding to talk about her with my son as if she wasn’t there.
2.) I will not ask my son, “Do you intend to have children with her?” and then promptly leave the table crying after being told yes.
3.) I will actually introduce my daughter-in-law when introductions are being made. Instead of referring to everyone there except my daughter-in-law and leaving them to wonder who the other girl is.
4.) I will not send my daughter-in-law a poisonous plant as a welcome to the family gift. I will especially not send her one when she’s in the hospital on complete bed rest during her pregnancy—even if I didn’t want those children born in the first place.
5.) When meeting my daughter-in-law’s friends, family, or boss I will actually feign interest when they want to tell me nice things about my daughter-in-law instead of abruptly changing the subject or telling them how my other daughter in law is more worth their professional time.
6.) I will remember what it feels like to fall in love with someone and have the rest of your life turn into a living hell because of their family. I will do my best not to make my future daughter in law ever wonder if marrying my son was worth all the heartache.
7.) I will offer to babysit my grandchildren frequently and often so that my son and his wife can spend time alone together without my daughter in law worrying about the stranger she had to pay to watch her children.
8.) I will remember when visiting that I am a guest. I have my own home and had my own family. Now it’s my son’s turn to build one with his wife.
9.) I will respect the decisions my husband and his wife make for their family.
10.) I will do everything in my power to develop a true friendship and relationship with the woman that was special enough for my son to ask to marry him. I didn’t raise a dummy after all.
Apparently I’m not alone.
There is an entire website dedicated to truly horrid mother-in-laws.
I dedicate the video below to my friend B. It was her mother-in-law who wished her dead at a holiday dinner.
Do you have in laws or outlaws?
What is your relationship like with your mother-in-law?
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The flowers of love & entitlement
Do I have to be in the Mood?
Renewing my vows and recycling my dress
Wedding cake dreams
Love is blind
Great Expectations and other marital woes
Birthday Girl
It's quite possible that I'm in the minority, but I do have in-laws, and thank God that we have a great relationship! My hubby's mother, step-father, and sister were very open and welcoming when we all first met. Then again, they are a special group of people: my sister-in-law has five children, ALL of them her previous foster children whom she adopted. My mother-in-law is one of those ladies that could put Martha Stewart to shame, so she and I share many creative outlets together. Of course, there are some things about her I'm not crazy about, such as her smoking, but all in all, she's wonderful and she treats me like a true daughter.
I am sooooo lucky to have nice in laws. I know a lot of people are not as lucky!
Hilarious! Mine are more passive aggressive, always saying “oh you took that the wrong way!”
Yeah.
I really love my in-law's!
One big reason is that they respect our family and are not critical. Since they aren't always tossing their 2 cents in willy nilly, we take them seriously when they do speak up.
I think we have to remember that our goal is to raise our children to be independent of us! When they are of age, we have to trust them to make their own decisions– be they good ones or bad ones. That's how you learn and mature.
And if we treat our adult children with respect, they will respect our opinions in return. At least that's the plan anyway!
I'm sorry you had to go through all of that Karin. I hope you have found peace in your relationship and forgiveness for past hurts.
Eek. I can't believe you are treated like that. I have great in laws so I can't really relate, but you definitely deserve to be treated better.